


Had enough of being uncool

by gloss



Category: The Office (US)
Genre: Community: femslashficlets, F/F, Texts From Last Night, alternate season four
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-06
Updated: 2015-06-06
Packaged: 2018-04-03 05:33:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4088851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/pseuds/gloss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Today's installment of Extreme Makeover: Pam Edition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Had enough of being uncool

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aphrodite_mine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aphrodite_mine/gifts).



> Something from an alternate s4. Title from Dead Kennedys, "[Dreadlocks of the Suburbs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4Vd2l3gvN0)". Started for [](http://femslashficlets.dreamwidth.org/profile)[femslashficlets](http://femslashficlets.dreamwidth.org/) Texts from Last Night challenge, but it ran long. For [](http://aphrodite-mine.dreamwidth.org/profile)[aphrodite_mine](http://aphrodite-mine.dreamwidth.org/) if she'd like it. <3

"There is no way I am paying you $5 apiece for pot brownies you found behind a dumpster. $2, maybe."

Roy shakes the bag of brownies like she's a puppy who can be persuaded with treats.

"I mean, do you need money? I could maybe see if --" Pam says, then trails off when Roy scowls.

"Five dollars seems pretty high," she adds. "That's all."

Roy just stares at her as she tries to haggle. She can't place that particular expression; she used to know them all, from Intensely Bored to Vaguely Engaged But Instantly Distractible all the way through to the friendliest of all, Please Let Me Have Sex With You Again I Promise It Won't Take Long.

"...what?" she asks when he just keeps staring. He's put on a little more muscle again, but his hair's thinning at the temples, just like his dad's.

"Nothing," he says. "You're just different. A lot different, that's all."

"Am not." She curls her hands deep inside her coat pockets. "Why would you say that?"

"Just -- different." He shrugs, frowning a little, like it hurts to think too much for too long.

That's mean, she shouldn't say that.

But it's true.

"Look," he says, "do you want them or not?"

Behind him, Dwight suddenly appears, like a magic trick with a terrible ending. He must have been hiding behind the recycling bins, but for how long? And _why?_ "Want what? What're you talking about?"

Pam turns away from him. "Nothing, Dwight. Go away."

"It's a free country." He tries to lean casually against the edge of the dumpster, but misjudges the distance and angle and kind of stumble-falls. "What? Just being friendly!"

"Yeah, okay," Roy says, stuffing the bag back into his denim jacket. It's way too thin for him to be wearing in this cold. "We'll catch up later, Pam. Let me know if you change your mind."

He hunches up his shoulders so the collar touches his ears and makes his back toward the warehouse. There are times when he hasn't changed an iota since sophomore year.

"Awk-kward," Dwight singsongs. He's standing very close to her, too close, but he doesn't seem to be enjoying it. His eyes are wide and round, his voice strained and a little higher than usual with the effort to sound normal. Or friendly. Or whatever inherently non-Dwight-like human quality he's shooting for. "Was he trying to recruit you back?"

Pam re-wraps her scarf and tucks the ends into her jacket. She only has twelve more minutes on her lunch break and she'd rather be stuck in Meredith's minivan than spend them with Dwight. Especially with Dwight doing one of his creepy investigations-slash-role playings.

"What're you talking about?" She doesn't really want to know, but curiosity has a way of getting the best of her.

Dwight's big Outback coat flaps in the wind as he hurries along beside her. "Maybe with Jim out of the picture, he thinks he has a chance again?"

She tries to slip through the front door without letting him through, but for such a lanky, awkwardly built marionette-man, Dwight can *motor* when he wants to. They stumble into the lobby like clowns spilling out of the Volkswagen. At the desk, Hank doesn't bother looking up from his Cup o'Noodles.

Dwight has to stop there, clutching his side.

"He just wants you to be heterosexual, Pam!" Dwight calls as she punches the _close door_ button repeatedly. "We all do!"

*

Not *everyone*. Michael, for one, and Kevin, especially, are still, months later, given to crowding her desk, sporting especially dopey grins, whenever she and Karen talk. Kevin no longer mutters gross stuff (much), but that is only because Angela filed a sexual-harassment complaint with corporate.

That would have been a very nice thing for her to do, except she named Pam and Karen as co-respondents, as if they were all participants in a Victorian adultery scandal.

"Hey," Karen says when Pam makes it back to the office. She's standing next to the fridge, water bottle in one hand, enormous pita leaking sprouts and greens on a plate on the counter, but she's emptying a pack of Nerds into her mouth. Somehow, in her sharply-tailored dress shirt and wool trousers, she makes candy guzzling look almost sophisticated. "Where've you been?"

She starts to dart in for a quick peck, but Pam steps back, glances over her shoulder to make sure the coast is clear.

"Sorry," she says before looking back. She knows Karen's rolling her eyes. She'd roll her eyes at herself, too, if she could. If that didn't make her look completely nuts. "Just -- thought I heard Toby."

Karen picks up her plate and knocks her hip against Pam's as she passes. "I've got a call at 1."

Pam grabs her arm and kisses her cheek quickly, apologetically. "The shark never rests."

"You know it," Karen says and lifts the plate like a toast. "Talk to you later? I need to fuel up."

"What was the candy for, then?" Pam asks.

"Candy?" Michael asks, backing out of the men's room with his hands in the air like a surgeon who's just scrubbed in.

"What candy?" Karen winks at her as she leaves.

Her girlfriend is very sassy.

Pam can't stop playing with the simple building blocks of that statement. Girlfriend, a girlfriend of her own, hers, to have and to hold for some undetermined but pretty great period of time.

*Girlfriend.*

"No, really, do you have any candy?" Michael slides between Pam and the edge of the fridge. "Jan found my stash."

She shouldn't ask. She can't help herself. "Why would you have a candy stash, Michael?"

He hunches his shoulders and starts to get that cornered, mulish expression on his face that never, ever bodes well. Mumbling, he says, "Jan has spreadsheets...", then trails off, not meeting her eye.

She has been here, known him, way too long, because the situation is suddenly, perfectly clear: with their new, tightened budget, Jan is the enforcer and cut off Michael's snacks expenditures. In response, Michael has resorted to squirrelling away sweets like the sneaky little kid he no doubt was.

"Come with me," she says, heading for the break room. She stops at the candy machine. "You want an Almond Joy, right?"

"Blech, no!" Michael blows a long, wet raspberry for emphasis. "Nuts are gross."

"Just teasing." She puts the dollar bill into the slot for him, because it always gives him trouble, then steps back. "You choose."

There, that's her good deed for the day. Maybe the week.

"Wait a minute --" She tugs at Michael's elbow, trying to get his attention back from the candy. "Michael, did you hide some brownies down by the warehouse?"

He doesn't look at her, entranced by all the candy choices. He sees, and studies, nearly basks in, these choices every single workday. She wonders what it must be like to be that optimistic and wonderstruck, believing every day that brand new candy might just appear.

"Yeah," Michael finally says, still not tearing himself away from the candy. Then he turns around, fast, eyebrows jumping up. "Oh, yeah! Brownies! I bought out Melissa's whole supply, some school fundraiser. Or band? Can't remember, but I...have to go check on something. Something else."

He is the worst liar in the history of humanity, jostling her out of the way in his eagerness to go retrieve the brownies. He's going to go nuts when he can't find them.

So much for her good deeds. The machine won't return her bill, nor let her make a selection.

*

"I have a surprise for you," Karen says when they're in the car heading home that evening. Her voice was a little sing-songy, but then she gets serious. "Now, I don't know if this is something you're into, or you've done before, but maybe give it a chance? For me? Who knows, maybe you'll like it?"

Pam smiles as she slows for a red light. "Kind of feel like I've been doing a lot of that lately. Trying new things."

"Yeah, but you love it." Now Karen's voice is a little lower, slightly rougher and secret-sharing, just enough to make Pam feel like she's shivering inside her own skin.

"Well, yes." Pam flicks on the turn signal, then speeds up. "That's not the point."

"Here's today's challenge in our ongoing Extreme Makeover: Pam Edition --"

"As long it's not pot brownies that don't actually have any pot in them, I'm game."

She has to slow and change lanes, so there's a stretch where she doesn't fully realize that Karen hasn't said anything.

Pam glances over. Karen has Roy's -- or Michael's, or whoever's -- bag in her lap. "Oh, sweetie. How much did you pay?"

Karen has her face turned away. She mutters something.

"Sorry, what was that?" Pam pats Karen's knee, then takes her hand and squeezes it. "Did the shark get bit?"

"Shut up," Karen mutters, but the side of her mouth twitches. She lifts her chin and squeezes Pam's hand back.

"You shut up."

"Won't."

"Good."

On the up side, now they have brownies for dinner.

Also, there is no down side.


End file.
